Play date: February 8, 2014
Game date: September 9, EY218
Location: the Electric Eliminators' headquarters on McNeely Station, Providence
Previous events: rooftop escapades
Leaving Big Johnny's flat by the front door is tense but harmless; he's good to his word and none of his gang attack them on the way out. Bishop and Gabi are waiting in the bus, safe and sound. The drive back to the apartment is equally uneventful and when everyone's back at the apartment drinks are poured and things are discussed, quietly enough to not wake Emily. It's most likely that "Mr. Johnson" is part of Hoax, so there's no need to follow him up: the trip to the Electric Eliminators' headquarters seems it hasn't changed much. While the drinks flow Jillian and Volkova are pretty open about Jillian having killed someone but as far as they can tell Gabi and John don't notice.
September 10, EY218
Based on the increasing brightness in the apartment the station's sailed around Limbaugh enough for dawn and the start to another day. No one's terribly sober, so Volkova heads into the kitchen with Jillian to cook some food, including her egg-and-cayenne (among other things) "cure" for drunkenness. While they're making a shambles of the kitchen Volkova convinces Jillian that they should check out whatever happened to the Deccan Driller. The last thing that they know is that the ship was heading off to investigate the existence of the Telushkin gas refinery orbiting Prager. That was late in EY217, so the lack of news nine months later is worrisome. Being the soft touch that she is, Jillian has to agree that they owe it to the Deccan Driller.
Closing her eyes to fight off the nausea of Volkova's "industrial sobriety recipe" Jillian works out that they won't have enough fuel to make it all the way to Prager and back; they can stop off at the Eggen Observatory on the way, though. They should do so anyway if the observatory is going to be the rendezvous point for the Iof and Steel Hummingbird at some future date. The mental calculations of interplanetary trips aren't enough to distract her from the rising booze and food and she gracefully heads to the bathroom, where she vomits silently enough that only Malcolm hears it... and promptly informs everyone about it.
Rather than sit around the apartment the crew decide to get a start on their trip to Prager. The first thing is to go find some gifts for the Resplendent Dragon while Jillian sobers up. Bishop initially wants to stay in the apartment while the old people drunk shop first thing in the morning, but the noises of waking up emanating from Emily's room make him change his mind and he follows his shipmates out the door after good-byes are said.
Going shopping while drunk is never a good idea and sales clerks aren't happy to see people in such a state as their first customers. Still, Jillian makes a decent choice of gift for Xao: a book about historical pirates that she thinks is good but also shows how horrible they were. Volkova gets a book of ship technical designs for Neet, knowing about his shipspotting tendencies. Malcolm thinks about getting a holster for Olivia's grenade launcher but can't find one and in the end he makes the horribly crude choice of sex lube in an industrial-sized container. Everything is left for the Dragons in their postbox on the station with a note about the Hummingbird going to check on the Deccan Driller.
Jillian finally sobered up, it's time to visit the Bureau of Xenobiology's office. They know exactly where it is, having broken into it before to steal the plans for the von Däniken platfom. As Malcolm's the only one who can drive they load his motorcycle into the minibus; this should be negligibly difficult with the ramp the bus has but Volkova decides to show off by hefting the motorcycle and pulls something in her back! Malcolm wheels the bike up the ramp, shaking his head while Bishop tries to help a grimacing Volkova. Unfortunately, his muscle-relaxing maggots don't like her greasy skin and refuse to attach. It looks like she'll just have to bear the pain.
Malcolm drives Volkova back to the ship while Bishop and Jillian take the subway to the Box office with the biological samples in a bag. They're soon meeting with Jason Davis, the assistant director of Providence's BoX, who is painfully thin in a way that manages to be attractive. Based on the looks he gives Bishop through his oversized hornrimmed glasses he seems to find the uBuntan quite fetching. Bishop swallows his distaste at being treated like a piece of meat and keeps Davis in a good mood. The exoskeleton from uBuntu goes over well, as do the remnants of the yellow plants.
When they tell him that uBuntu is actually a giant telepathic mind-controlling machine of some sort his immediate reaction is to inform Hoax about this: it's obviously part of their purview. Bishop and Jillian manage to convince him that this would be a bad idea, using the rivalry between Box and Hoax, the potential dangers of the machine, and Davis's obvious attraction to Bishop to bolster their points. The note from the iLangan matriarchs about bringing animals to iLanga is... interesting, but there are obvious difficulties with this plan and he'll have to pass it on to his superior.
He's also told about the insanity-causing black goo and the strange artificial ovoid at Labrys City, which he'd heard something about, and dropping Helga Lang's name helps to impress him more. Although they left without finding out the results of any of the resultant research they work at developing the idea that they know about all sorts of odd things. It can't help to seem knowledgable about this sort of thing, right? They exchange contact info before leaving and taking the subway back to the Steel Hummingbird, where Malcolm and a wincing Volkova have prepped her for launch.The last task before they leave McNeely station is to leave the promised amount of money for Big Johnny in an agreed-upon dead drop with a note about them leaving the station. After that they fly off towards the Eggen Observatory, just over two AU away.
September 11, EY218
Everyone is happy to see that the Eggen Observatory has functional gravity: the spare parts that the Hummingbird gave them seem to be doing the trick. They dock at the umbilical and are greeted by the observatory's crew. Bishop's immediately hit on by Claudia, the attractive and smartly-dressed technician, but he keeps Warden Whang in his heart and rebuffs her advantages. Malcolm passes a random gewgaw to Roberta as if it were meant specifically for her; she seems delighted by it. Volkova's as pleased to see Jörg as he is to see her and the two of them scandalize Bishop with their wrinkly, lecherous behaviour right in front of everyone.
The Steel Hummingbird's crew talks to the Eggen's about what they've been up to and their plans. Not surprisingly, Roberta and her gang will be happy to see the Iof and the Grob whenever they show up. Surprisingly, it turns out that Jörg has some experience with jump drives! He used to live in Aiscapo and worked on the Zheng He, the big jump ship that travels between the Aiscapo and Panyan cluster, but found the work boring: the ship jumps rarely enough that the amount of work was minimal unless the ship had just jumped in or was about to leave and Daebak wasn't his favourite planet in general.
Volkova drags Jörg to the Hummingbird's secret compartment to show him the jump drive parts. She also gropes him a fair bit. The jump drive parts need work and that requires specialized equipment of a type that's only really found in Aiscapo; it's where the jump ship comes in and jump drives are unknown elsewhere in the cluster. He knows some people in that system who may be able to help. Volkova also thinks about Nanda Reddy and the crew of the Leary. Maybe they'd have something?
While Volkova's thus distracted Jillian steals some of her engineer's vodka and ends up in the kitchen getting drunk with Kieran, the resident drunk on the Eggen, nattering on about the D'vor and her worries about them. While she does so Malcolm decides that if they're going to be flying to Prager and checking out the Telushkin it would be useful to take advantage of the most powerful astronomical equipment in the system to see what's there. Kirshner agrees and has Pramath point the telescope Pragerwise, something he does with a fair amount of grumbling about how this isn't proper use of university equipment. She shushes him and admits to Malcolm that the equipment isn't designed to look at anything a mere eight and a half AUs away but once the scanning is done she'll analyze the data with the computer over the next day or two.
When Volkolva and Jörg return -- clothing somewhat askew -- to the Eggen she announces that Jörg will need two days to look at the jump drives properly. She also says that she'll be sharing his quarters with him during that time.
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Addendum: Jillian and Kieran in the kitchen
Jillian walks into the cramped Observatory galley, bottle of vodka in hand. "Here," she says, "I got it. Glasses?"
Kieran puts aside the pot he'd been scouring, wipes his hands on his stained apron, and fetches two shot glasses down from a high cupboard. One of them is dusty. He sets them on the counter so that the clean one is nearer Jillian.
"You really tend to drink alone, don't you?" she says.
"We all have our routines," he says.
He doesn't make any move to clean his own glass, so Jillian shrugs inwardly and pours the two shots. "To breaking routines," she says, lifting her glass.
Kieran lifts his in reply, and they both drink.
***
Half a bottle later. Sitting side by side on the floor, leaning against the cupboards. The galley is too small for them to fully stretch their legs out.
"And the next thing I knew, there was a burst of static and then some Vishnan lady was saying 'Thank you for confirming your order of fifteen thousand packets of ketchup.'"
Beside her, Jillian hears a gentle snore. She lets her own head loll sideways, enough to see that Kieran's eyes are closed and his head is tilted back against the cupboard door. His shot glass rests on his lap, his fingers loose around it.
"Right then. Good night," she says, and starts to get up. But *up* is a long way away from where she is, and she doesn't make it. "Never mind," she says, settling back against the cupboard door. The vodka bottle is still half full, and so far to be honest she's only been matching Kieran one shot for two. She starts to refill her glass, decides it's too much trouble, and takes a drink directly from the bottle instead.
"You know," she says, gazing blearily ahead at the other set of cupboards, "Sometimes I honestly wish that the D'vor would just hurry up and get here." She waits for a moment. Kieran's soft snores don't miss a beat. "Not that I'm actually in a hurry to get shot or mind-controlled or eaten, or whatever it is that they do," she continues, "but the terror of anticipation is really getting to me, you know? There's this part of me that says ... let's just get it over with."
Jillian takes a pensive drink.
"Actually," she says, "that was a little bit of a lie. The real reason I want the D'vor to come is because once they do, nothing else matters. Not Flint. Not Xao. Not the Black Rose." When she hears herself saying those last words, she flinches. Kieran continues his reassuring snoring, though, so Jillian takes another drink and keeps talking. "I guess I know this thing with Xao is a mess. He thinks I'm a monster for killing Flint the way I did. And he's not wrong, so there's that. But even before Flint, it was a mess. When I thought he was attracted to me, I was terrified. When I thought he wasn't attracted to me, I was devastated. This, *this*" she says, sloshing the bottle for emphasis, "*this* is why I should never let people get close to me." She takes another drink.
"It isn't all about Alexei, either," she says. "Or Rashid. I'm not actually worried that Xao will turn out to be a sociopath." She stops, thinks about it. Drinks again. "Okay, maybe I am a little worried. Especially if he decides he's attracted to me now, after Flint. So that's a dilemma, isn't it? I want him to forgive me. But if he does, then he can't be trusted. Great, Jillian. Just great. Well, I shouldn't have killed Flint then, should I have?
"But if I hadn't killed Flint, he would've gone back and told the Black Rose what happened there, and we would've been as good as dead. I couldn't let that happen. I sealed Flint's fate as soon as I went into that room with my tattoo showing.
"And you know, it's not like I didn't realize that ahead of time. I *knew* that once I played that card, there was no turning back. I played it anyway. I hated him for fucking us over. And I wasn't exactly pleased with everybody else for delivering him to me like that, either -- what the hell did they *think* would happen when they got into a firefight with him in the hallway and then took him prisoner? So I guess you could say I was in a dark kind of mood when I made that decision.
"So I went in there, and I played that role. And ... fucking *hell* Kieran, it was such a rush. Seeing the terror in his eyes. I hadn't felt like that since I was seventeen. There was a part of me that *loved* it. Feeling that power again. You have no idea how much I hate myself for that.
"I didn't love *killing* him, though. Let's be very clear about that." Jillian shudders, hearing again in her head -- for the thousandth time -- the gun going off in the tiny cabin, and a split second later the squishy patter of bits of Flint's brains and skull hitting the back wall.
She takes a gulp from the vodka bottle, and doesn't say anything else for a minute or two.
"There was no way I was going to let Malcolm do it, though," she says finally. "I know he wanted to. Or anyway, he *thought* he wanted to. But here's a thing about killing. Once it's done, that stain is never coming off your soul. That's what I learned from Brutus Montoya.
"So now what? I ran away from the Black Rose because I didn't want to be a murderer anymore, and here I am, a murderer again. And there's nothing to run away from, this time. I can't run away from myself." Jillian stops, eyes the vodka bottle. "Or, maybe I can. Have been. Trying to, anyway.
"So, that's not a good plan. I need a better one." She leans her head back against the cupboard, closes her eyes. She's tired, so tired. And dizzy. "Rescue the Deccan Driller. They could still be alive. It's *possible*. Warn everybody about the D'vor. Help the survivors from the Leary. The good can never cancel out the bad, but it helps, right? It's got to help."
Kieran snores.
"Thanks," Jillian mumbles, resting her head against his shoulder. "You're a good listener."
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Bishop's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 17)
Jillian's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (and she prefers it that way)
Malcolm's Bedpost Notch Count: 0 (running total: 5)
Volkova's Bedpost Notch Count: 1 round of secret-compartment nookie (running total: 4)